SignNow's 100 signature invite limit, and what extra invites cost

The cap

SignNow's help centre states it plainly: "Paid SignNow plans include an annual allowance of 100 signature invites per user."

That applies across Business, Business Premium and Enterprise. It is an annual allowance on a plan billed monthly, and it is per user — so the way to get more capacity is to buy another seat, whether or not you have another person.

Two details do most of the damage:

Nothing rolls over. "Unused invites do not roll over into the next year — every subscriber starts each year with a fresh quota." A quiet first half does not fund a busy second half.

The allowance is per user, so it is smaller than it sounds. Five seats is 500 invites for the year, not 500 a month. A team sending 300 documents a month clears it in under two months.

Free and trial accounts are governed differently: rather than an annual allowance they run a daily limit of 10 invites.

What extra invites cost

This is the part that is most often reported wrongly. Several comparison articles — including some written by competing vendors — state a flat overage of $1.50 per invite. SignNow's own help centre lists three different rates:

| Plan | Per additional invite | |---|---| | Business | $0.96 | | Business Premium | $1.80 | | Enterprise | $3.60 |

The rate rises with the tier, which is the opposite of how volume pricing usually works, and it more than triples from bottom to top. So the cost of going over depends on which plan you are on, and the plan that costs most per seat also costs most per excess invite.

If you have read the $1.50 figure somewhere, it is worth checking your own tier against SignNow's help centre before budgeting from it. The cap itself is real and well documented; the flat rate is not.

The same workload, priced

Five people sending 300 documents a month is 3,600 invites a year. Five seats allow 500. The 3,100 excess invites cost:

| Plan | Excess | Rate | Overage per year | |---|---:|---:|---:| | Business | 3,100 | $0.96 | $2,976 | | Business Premium | 3,100 | $1.80 | $5,580 | | Enterprise | 3,100 | $3.60 | $11,160 |

That is on top of the subscription, and it is the reason the reviews for this product so often describe a bill that bore no relation to the quote. A team on Business Premium at that volume pays more in overage than most e-signature subscriptions cost outright.

Worth stating clearly: none of this is a penalty or a trick. Per-invite pricing beyond an allowance is a legitimate model, and at low volume the entry price is genuinely low. The problem is that the allowance is annual, per user, and not on the pricing page, so the volume at which the model changes character is invisible at the point of purchase.

Site License, and why it is not simply the answer

SignNow offers a Site License that inverts the model: pay per signature invite with no cap on the number of users, rather than per seat with a cap on invites. For a team whose sending volume is high relative to its headcount, that is the structurally correct shape.

It is quoted rather than listed, so the per-invite price depends on the negotiation. Do the arithmetic both ways before switching: at 3,600 a year, whether Site License beats staying on Business and paying $0.96 overages depends entirely on the rate you are offered.

Checking your own usage

Before renewal, work out your real annual send volume and divide by your seat count. If the answer is comfortably under 100, the seat model is fine and SignNow's entry price is competitive. If it is over 100 — and for most teams that send routinely, it will be — then the number that matters is not the seat price but the per-invite rate for your tier, multiplied by the excess.

That second number is the one to compare against alternatives, because it is usually the larger one.

The structural alternative

The cap exists because the allowance is attached to the seat. PearSign attaches it to the account instead: Professional is $39 a month for 1,000 envelopes a month across the whole account, with 15 team members included, and the free plan is 10 envelopes a month with no card and no expiry.

At 3,600 documents a year that workload sits inside Professional — 12,000 a year of capacity — so there is no overage line at all. The allowance is stated on the pricing page rather than in a help-centre article, which is the part that makes the cost predictable before you buy rather than after.

FAQ

Does SignNow really limit you to 100 signatures a year?

It limits each paid user to 100 signature invites a year, so the account allowance is 100 times your seat count. SignNow's help centre states this applies to Business, Business Premium and Enterprise. You can keep sending past it, but each further invite is billed individually.

How much does SignNow charge per extra invite?

$0.96 on Business, $1.80 on Business Premium and $3.60 on Enterprise, per SignNow's own help centre. It is not a single flat rate, and it increases with the tier. Articles quoting $1.50 across the board do not match SignNow's documentation.

Do unused SignNow invites roll over?

No. SignNow states that unused invites do not roll over into the next year and that every subscriber starts each year with a fresh quota. An annual allowance you underuse is simply lost.

Does SignNow have a free plan?

SignNow's plans page offers a free trial rather than a permanent free plan. Free and trial accounts operate under a limit of 10 invites per day instead of an annual allowance.

What is the difference between an invite and a document?

An invite is a request for a signature sent to a recipient, which is the unit SignNow meters. A single document sent to three people for signature therefore consumes more of the allowance than a document sent to one, which matters when estimating annual volume from a document count.